Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Thick smoke rolls out of a burning ship during the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)

75th Anniversary

The North Texans of Pearl Harbor

Their obituaries tell of lives cut short – and of lives well lived

They were bakers, teachers and printers. Some were fresh out of high school, hungry for adventure and a chance to serve.

They had been reading, eating breakfast, going about their duties. Others had been sleeping after revelry from the night before.

They were North Texans and others from farms and towns and cities across America. For them all, in one of our nation's most cataclysmic moments, life changed forever.

Japan attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, wrenching the U.S. from its peacetime slumber and into the war already tearing apart the world.

Wednesday marks Pearl Harbor's 75th anniversary, and as a way to remember, The Dallas Morning News is rerunning excerpts from the obituaries of just a few of the North Texans who were there.

Some met their tragic ends that day; others died later in the war. But many survived and went on to build families, homes and careers.

We hope these short stories provide a unique lens through which to reflect on the sacrifices made by all at Pearl Harbor that day — and by millions more who gave so selflessly while our nation was at war.

Kenneth Vernon Adams

USS Henley

“I stuck my head out the port and saw two torpedoes hit the USS Utah and saw it bellied upside down.”

Adams was a 17-year-old sailor taking a shower aboard the USS Henley when he heard the alarm.

The former Woodrow Wilson High School student had planned that Sunday to tour Hawaii with a friend. He was dressed only in his shower shoes when the alarm sounded. He grabbed a towel, ran the length of the ship to his battle station, only to be
told it was a false alarm.

He had returned to the shower when the alarm sounded again.

“The second time they rang the bells, they said, ‘Oh great, the dummy did it again,” Adam’s daughter Judy Moreland recalled in 2014.

But this time, Adams also heard a sailor screaming, “War! War! War!”

“I stuck my head out the port and saw two torpedoes hit the USS Utah and saw it bellied upside down,” Adams said in 2012.

Adams grabbed a towel and ran to his battle station.

“I fought all morning in a bath towel,” he said.

Adams told his family that the Henley was the second ship to steam out of the harbor before it shut down.

On a 1943 leave to Dallas, Adams married Doris Lamar, a North Dallas High School student whom he had met at a party when he was at Woodrow Wilson. She died in 1976.

Adams returned to combat after the wedding. He served on the Henley until it was sunk by a torpedo on Oct. 3, 1943.

By war’s end, the Adamses were living in San Diego. He passed his GED and attended a business school.

Adams’ civilian career included sales work for U.S. Rubber, Johnson Wax and Holt Floor Machines.

“He could sell waterfront property in Arizona,” his daughter said. “He just could.”

Adams’ favorite job was as an over-the-road driver for Frozen Food Express. He also worked for the U.S. Postal Service.

Adams was born in Belleville, Ill., and grew up in Dallas, where he enlisted before graduating from Woodrow Wilson. His father signed for him to enter the Navy.

He was 90 when he died of a heart attack at his home in Mesquite on Dec, 22, 2014, the 73rd anniversary of his enlistment.

Adams was survived by his second wife, four daughters, three stepdaughters, 18 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.

Robert M. ‘Bob’ Allen

Admiral’s Headquarters

“They finally issued him a gun, but then they didn't have any ammunition.”

Bob Allen was 17 when he joined the Navy on Dec. 7, 1940. One year later, he was completing his night duty atop the watch platform for Admiral Husband Kimmel’s two-story headquarters at Pearl Harbor when the base was attacked. He was about to
raise the flag when he spotted the approaching fighter planes.

The sailor on duty with Allen sounded an alert with a hand-cranked siren.

"They didn't even have a gun," his wife, Earlyne Allen of Dallas, recalled in 2009. “They finally issued him a gun, but then they didn't have any ammunition.”

Allen was pressed into rescue and firefighting duty aboard the USS Avocet later that day. He spent much of his World War II service aboard merchant ships.

"He never actually went into battle," his wife said. "He was on merchant ships transporting oil and supplies all over."

Born in Taft, Texas, Allen was the fourth of six children. He graduated high school in Van Buren, Ark., in 1939. He served in the Navy with three brothers and two in-laws.

Allen received a bachelor’s in English from the University of Arkansas and a master’s in student counseling from the University of Arkansas. He was a high school teacher and counselor for seven years in Marked Tree, Ark., before moving to Dallas
in 1955.

In Dallas, Allen was in personnel administration for more than 30 years with Taylor Publishing Co. and Transport Insurance Co. in Dallas.

In 1991, Allen returned to Pearl Harbor on the attack’s 50th anniversary. He often gave talks to students and the Lions Club about his wartime experience.

He was a life member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.

Allen was 86 when he died Jan. 15, 2009, of numerous medical problems at his Dallas home.

He was survived by his wife, a son and two grandchildren.

Chester ‘Sam’ Dellinger

USS Thornton

Sam Dellinger and another sailor had just left the destroyer USS Thornton to dispose of potato peels when he spotted an airplane overhead that he didn’t recognize. The sky was soon filled with attacking Japanese Zeros.

Dellinger, a 26-year-old fireman first class, sprinted back to his post. After the war, he had a 32-year career as a mechanic at Lone Star Cadillac in Dallas.

He was 89 when he died Feb. 17, 2005, at his Dallas home.

Dellinger was survived by two sons, a daughter and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Charles William Deshler Jr.

USS Rigel

“The memories he had were of body parts floating in the water, the smell and the color of the water, red like blood.”

Charles Deshler, was a 22-year-old printer aboard the USS Rigel, which was moored in a conversion dock during the attack.

"Like a lot of people at Pearl Harbor, he spent his time in recovery efforts ... pulling people out of the burning oil and burning water," his grandson Kevin Ketchum of Memphis, Tenn., said in 2007.

Deshler’s daughter Colleen Muller of Longview recalled: "It pretty much scared him to death. The memories he had were of body parts floating in the water, the smell and the color of the water, red like blood."

Deshler served aboard the Rigel in the Pacific for much of the war. He was in landing-craft school in San Diego, preparing for an invasion of Japan, when the war ended.

After the war, he returned home to Oklahoma City. He married in November 1947 and moved to Dallas to work at The Dallas Morning News, his grandson said.

He later worked for The Wall Street Journal and the Longview News-Journal.

Deshler was 87 when he died March 17, 2007, of congestive heart failure in Rockwall.

He was survived by his wife, two daughters, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

John Dillingham

USS Hull

“I remember waking up and going on topside, and everybody was yelling something: ‘We’re being attacked! We’re being attacked!”

Dillingham was born near Gatesville and was 3 when his family moved to Dallas. He waited until eight months after graduating from Dal-Tech High School in the spring of 1940 to enlist, so that he could enter the Navy with his buddies.

However, he failed the Navy physical on the first try, he said for a University of North Texas oral history.

“I was a pound too light,” he said. “So we went to the cafe near the recruiting station and they fed me two hamburgers and two malted milks.”

The strategy worked, and the friends were sworn in on Jan. 28, 1941. After boot camp in San Diego, Dillingham was assigned to the USS Hull, going aboard on May 31. A long way from being an electrician, his first assignment was to chip and repaint
the deck.

He was relieved of the lowly assignment when a passing sailor asked if anybody on the crew could type. It was his ticket to the ship’s office, where he took over typing the log. He then was transferred to engineering, where he started learning
the ship’s mechanical workings.

The evening before the attack, the Hull’s crew was granted shore leave to celebrate the ship’s birthday. The sailors were treated to dinner, ample drinks and a tour of the island.

The next morning, America was at war.

“I remember waking up and going on topside, and everybody was yelling something: ‘We’re being attacked! We’re being attacked!’” he said for the oral history.

The 18-year-old Dillingham ran to his battle station, dressed only in his undershorts. The Japanese planes had struck battleship row and proceeded to rake the vessels at Ford Island, where the Hull was stationed for repairs. He and the sailors
at his gun station returned fire.

The Hull took no direct hits, but a nearby bomb blast ruptured the ship’s hydraulic rudder controls. After the attack, the crew operated the rudder manually, guiding it to sea in search of enemy submarines.

Dillingham served aboard the USS Hull for four years and seven months as the destroyer escorted aircraft carriers and saw combat across the South Pacific.

Dillingham was honorably discharged in 1947 and joined Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. in Dallas, where he met Margie Ruth Tucker. They married in 1954, and she died in 2013.

He was 93 when he died July 27 of natural causes at his home in Scurry.

Dillingham’s family included a son, six grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.

Earl Donnell Jr.

USS Enterprise

“Planning to refuel at Ford Island, the Navy Dauntless dive bombers arrived during the attack and joined in the fight.”

Earl Donnell Jr. of Dallas would have been at Pearl Harbor during the attack, but the naval aviator’s plane was given thumbs-down shortly before it was to take off from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.

A member of Scouting Squad 6, he was scheduled to join 17 other planes scanning the Pacific that morning for unidentified ships. The planes — including a substitute for Donnell’s — left the Enterprise at about the same moment the Japanese aircraft
took off from their carriers.

Planning to refuel at Ford Island, the Navy Dauntless dive bombers arrived during the attack and joined in the fight to defend the island. Six of the Enterprise planes were lost in the battle.

Donnell died 56 days later in an attack on Kwajalein Atoll in the Western Marshall Islands. The raid was executed in the face of enemy fighter opposition and heavy anti-aircraft fire.

His Navy citation stated “he pressed home his attack in a determined manner and contributed to the damage of enemy installations on Roi Island. He gallantly gave up his life in the service of his country. His conduct was in accordance with the
best traditions of the naval service.”

Donnell was born in Temple and was a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and the California Institute of Technology. He entered the Naval Reserves in August 1940.

He received a Purple Heart and an Air Medal for his service. The destroyer escort USS Donnell was named in his honor. His name is included on the Pearl Harbor monument at Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas.

John W. Evans

USS Arizona

“Why me? I had a good friend — a Christian friend — who died.”

The 22-year-old gunner’s mate was setting out chairs for a Sunday service aboard the Arizona. He went to his battle station when the attack started but soon realized the ship was doomed.

"He smelled something and knew it was going to blow up," his daughter Janet McCalip of Bacliff said in 2005. Evans eventually swam to safety through the oily, burning harbor water.

Fifty years later, he said the experience was still too painful to discuss.

"I answered a few questions about it the other day, and I didn't sleep all night," he said in 1991. "I didn't realize it was still that bad." He said he still wondered why he survived.

"Why me? I had a good friend — a Christian friend — who died," he said.

The experience changed his life. The Alabama native had dropped out of school in the ninth grade to help support his family. After the war, he received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Texas A&M University, where he studied animal sciences.

He moved to southeast Dallas, where he owned and operated the Aggie Feed Store. He became known as Mr. Aggie to the droves of customers who sought out his knowledge of animal health, his daughter said. He retired from the feed-store business in 1974.

Evans served six years on the Dallas City Council, where he served as mayor pro tem.

He was 83 when he died Sept. 19, 2005, in Dallas of complications from a fall.

He was survived by his wife, three daughters, two sons, a brother, two sisters, 14 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Paul Ferguson

Hickam Army Air Field

“They came back and hit us again. An hour later, they hit us again.”

Paul Ferguson, 24, was an operations clerk at Hickam Army Air Field, adjacent to the Pearl Harbor naval base, on that morning.

He had just finished his shift and was walking to the mess hall for breakfast when he heard a bomb hit.

He turned and saw four Japanese bombers flying overhead, low to the ground.

"I could see the Rising Sun on the fuselage and wings," he recalled in December 2003. "I could see at least one of the pilots."

He sprinted back to the headquarters building, which had been strafed with machine-gun fire.

"Nobody had been hurt, but everybody was scared to death, including me," he said. The Japanese aircraft hit Hickam Field three times that day.

"The first time they bombed us and went on to Pearl," Ferguson said. "They came back and hit us again. An hour later, they hit us again."

Ferguson wasn't injured, but 18 men in his squadron were killed.

He served out the war in Hawaii, rising from private to staff sergeant.

Born in New York, Ferguson grew up in an orphanage; his mother died during childbirth. His father married a woman with children of her own and sent his offspring to the orphanage. Ferguson, who was about 5 at the time, was the oldest of the three
siblings.

Ferguson cleared brush in Wyoming and Montana for the Civilian Conservation Corps before joining the Army Air Corps in 1939. He arrived in Hawaii in May 1940.

After the war, Ferguson received a bachelor's degree in entomology from Rutgers University.

He was a researcher and technical representative for S.B. Penick & Co., a specialty pharmaceutical company. He lived in several cities while working for Penick and was transferred to Dallas in the late 1970s.

Ferguson worked hard to sustain the memory of veterans' efforts.

He was 88 when he died in Dallas on Feb. 3, 2007, of pneumonia. Survivors included his wife, a sister and brother.

Anthony ‘Tony’ Gannarelli

USS Tennessee

“They gave us a lot of hurt, so I figured I should give some back.”

Tony Gannarelli was a 28-year-old turret gunner awaiting a doctor in sick bay aboard the USS Tennessee when he glanced out the porthole and saw a Japanese plane fly by.

“Boy, we got troubles,” he thought at the time.

Gannarelli scrambled to his battle station with the remains of the cast he’d been having removed still dangling from his leg.

The Tennessee lost only six men in the attack.

About a year later, Gannarelli was transferred to the USS Indiana, a ship that bombarded the coast of Iwo Jima during the fight for the Japanese island. The ship took brutal attacks from the kamikazes, Gannarelli said in 2014.

"They gave us a lot of hurt," Gannarelli said. "So I figured I should give some back."

Gannarelli had a 25-year career in the Navy. He retired in 1959 as a decorated Navy commander.

Born in Huntingdon, Pa., Gannarelli was 21 when he joined the Navy in 1934. He was one of eight selected out of a pool of 200 applicants.

Giannarelli, who lived in Plano after his retirement, died in Port Royal on April 15, five days before his 103rd birthday.

Survivors included a daughter, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Roy Melton Gee

USS Phoenix

“We were headed out to sea, and we thought we'd have to take them on by ourself.”

While he and his shipmates were not hurt in the attack, they were among the first Americans thrown into the war against Japan. Gee was only 19.

After the attack, the Phoenix maneuvered around the harbor debris to form an impromptu search group to hunt down the Japanese navy.

"He said they headed out to sea for three days," said Gee’s daughter, Pam Nation of Irving. "He was scared to death they were going to find them."

The 19-year-old sailor had reason to be concerned. The Phoenix — a Brooklyn-class light cruiser — would not have been much of a match for the Japanese fleet, thought to be lurking in the South Pacific.

"We were headed out to sea, and we thought we'd have to take them on by ourself," he told his daughter.

Gee was born in Waco on Nov. 24, 1922. He joined the Navy in December 1940. He continued to serve on the Phoenix after Pearl Harbor, mostly escorting convoys.

He was attending officer training school in Georgetown, Texas, when he finished his tour of duty in 1945. He remained in the Navy Reserve until September 1964.

After his Navy lieutenant’s service, Gee became a field manager for Ford Motor Co. in Dallas, supporting dealerships throughout Texas for 32 years.

Gee was 86 when he died Nov. 7, 2009, in Irving. His wife, Edna Rhea Gee, died earlier that year.

Gee was survived by two children, six grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

Archibald ‘Arch’ Gibson

USS Whitney

“Aboard the USS Whitney, Gibson had his bags packed to return to the mainland when the Japanese attacked.”

Aboard the USS Whitney, Gibson had his bags packed to return to the mainland when the Japanese attacked.

Though in sight of the USS Arizona, Gibson's supply ship was not a target.

Born in Rison, Ark., Gibson grew up on service stories of World War I veterans. Finding job prospects poor when he graduated high school during the Great Depression, Gibson enlisted in the Navy, whose veterans had the most interesting stories, his
wife, Helen Ruth Gibson of Dallas, said in 1997.

Despite being a career sailor, Gibson never learned to swim. He reasoned that he spent most of his time either on land or in a ship's engine room, where it wouldn't help to know how to swim if disaster struck.

He survived Pearl Harbor to complete 26 years of active duty in the Navy. In 1958, Gibson moved to Dallas to attend Southern Methodist University, where he earned a degree in history. He went on to become a Dallas high school teacher for 17 years
and capped it all off with 13 years as a church day-care worker.

In 1991, he was aboard the first cruise ship to sail through Pearl Harbor on the attack’s 50th anniversary. The oldest veteran of the attack at the time, Gibson had the honor of placing memorial flowers at the site.

Gibson was 28 on the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was 84 when he died Sept. 30, 1997, of congestive heart failure at his Dallas home.

He was survived by his wife, two daughters, two sons, 11 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Lonnie Moss Hartson

USS Arizona

“Although he was first reported missing in action, the Navy notified his parents that since attempts to find the youth had failed, he must be considered dead.”

The 18-year-old son of Hugh Hartson, identification expert at the Dallas Police Station, was killed in action at Pearl Harbor.

Hartson was aboard the USS Arizona when it was sunk by Japanese bombers. Although he was first reported missing in action, the Navy notified his parents that since attempts to find the youth had failed, he must be considered dead.

Hartson enlisted in the Navy at the age of 17 just after his graduation from Forest Avenue High School in June 1940. His father had given his written permission because he, too, at the age of 17, had wanted to join the Navy in the first World
War but was refused written permission by his parents.

By the time Lonnie was 18, he was ready to attend a radio signal school in Chicago. He was first assigned to the USS St. Louis, then was sent aboard the ill-fated Arizona a month or so before Pearl Harbor.

Houston James

Ford Island

“They were stacking American dead row upon row. It stuck with me many years, the utter devastation of it all.”

Houston Franklin James was a 17-year-old sailor stationed at Ford Island when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., James grew up in Pensacola Fla., where he entered the Navy.

“He was a dirt-poor Depression kid,” said his son, Bill James of Dallas. He received basic training in Norfolk, Va., where “he thought he’d died and gone to heaven,” his son said.

James was trained as an aviation metalsmith and assigned to Patrol Squadron 24. He was sent Ford Island, arriving in about October 1941.

Because he was the junior enlisted man, James was assigned to mess duty. He had just completed preparing Sunday mess and was returning to his barracks when the attack began.

“He ran to the roof, and he could see the planes coming in,” his son said. “He couldn’t believe what was happening.”

James then scampered down, trying to make his way to the barracks, as dive bombers attacked the seaplane facility.

“His recollections over the years were kind of hazy about the day,” his son said. “I think he could remember that they had to take their whites — including their Dixie Cups — and they dyed them in urns of coffee. They were setting up for what they thought was a ground attack by the Japanese, which never came.”

James served out his enlistment in Hawaii and California. At the end of the war, he was aboard the USS Alabama and was present in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese surrendered.

In a 2000 interview, James said the reality of war didn’t sink in until he realized how many people lost their lives.

James recalled that he and another seaman found a dead Japanese gunner and asked an officer where they should dispose of the body. The officer told them to take the body to a hill on Ford Island, because he didn’t want him buried among the Americans, he said. When he and the other seaman saw where the Americans were buried in a makeshift grave, it shocked him.

“They were stacking American dead row upon row,” he said. “It stuck with me many years, the utter devastation of it all.”

In 1956, James moved to Dallas, where he became a business owner. He was former president of the North Texas Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.

He was 90 when he died of pneumonia in February 2015. Survivors included five children, five grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.

James Roy ‘J.R.’ Kanaman

USS Tracy

“They were sitting, just like this, in the hammock netting. They were just sitting up in shorts and T-shirts, just burnt black.”

James Kanaman was a 22-year-old machinist mate aboard the destroyer USS Tracy when the attack hit. He and another sailor knocked the lock off the ship’s armory, grabbed a machine gun and started firing.

The rest of his life, people would ask him if the was scared by the attack.

“It wasn’t a matter of getting scared,” Kanaman would reply. “You didn’t have time to get scared.”

But it was his work after the attack that would keep Kanaman awake a night. He volunteered to unload items from the badly damaged USS California.

"We carried things off all night," including about a dozen dead sailors, he recalled in 2011.

"They were sitting, just like this, in the hammock netting. They were just sitting up in shorts and T-shirts, just burnt black.

"We'd have to get 'em down, roll 'em up in a blanket, put them up on a stretcher and get them off."

Born Oct. 23, 1919, in Frisco, Kanaman lived most of his life in Dallas.

Kanaman returned to Dallas after the war and soon rejoined the Navy, in which he served for many years. He was always involved in the community and was serving at the time of his death on the city's Civil Service Board.

In 2011, Kanaman and fellow Pearl Harbor survivor Bill Hughes were grand marshals of the Dallas Veterans Day Parade.

"I'm personally in favor of honoring the ones that didn't come back," Kanaman said before the parade. "They're the real heroes."

Kanaman was 92 when he died March 9, 2012.

He was survived by his wife, a daughter, and a son.

Vernon Kelly

USS Honolulu

“They didn't know when they opened that hatch if they were going to be prisoners of war or be free or shot dead.”

Kelly was reading the Sunday paper aboard the light cruiser USS Honolulu when the alarm sounded.

He sprang to his battle station. A torpedo hit the Honolulu but did not detonate, damaging the ship's hull. He worked to contain the mess created by seawater mixed with oil and diesel fuel from ruptured barrels.

The muck made the floor so slick that he couldn't stand up. The hatch to the ship's magazine was shut to contain the damage.

Rumors spread that the Japanese were invading with 50,000 troops.

"They didn't know when they opened that hatch if they were going to be prisoners of war or be free or shot dead," his wife, Sue Kelly of Mesquite, said in 2013. "He said that he went into the magazine as a 19-year-old boy and came out and felt like he was a 19-year-old man."

"He said that was really the only time during the entire war that he was afraid," his wife said. "He was scared."

Kelly served on the Honolulu throughout the Pacific, then was transferred to help fill a shortage of gunners in the North Atlantic. About a year later, he returned to the Pacific as combat on that front intensified. He served during the battles
at Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

"He saw both flag-raisings there," Sue Kelly said.

Kelly was aboard the USS Tolland when the Japanese surrendered in Tokyo Bay.

After the war, Kelly received a bachelor's degree in business and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

He was admitted to the bar in 1952 and worked briefly with Stewart Title Co. He worked for the state in Terrell for about eight years before starting a private law practice in Dallas.

Kelly was 91 when he died Oct. 25, 2013, of natural causes at his Mesquite home.

Kelly was survived by his wife, two daughters, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Eli Whitney ‘Speck’ Lunceford

Pearl Harbor

“Lunceford was honorably discharged with a leg wound. The friend was killed at his side.”

Eli Lunceford was strafed by gunfire during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Crandall native was a child when he and his mother moved to nearby Dallas after his father died.

Lunceford — "Speck" to his friends because of a large freckle on his nose — spent much of his youth working at a Dallas dairy and fighting.

Years of milking cows and an education on the streets gave him the big hands and smarts of a boxing champion. He joined the Navy and became a light heavyweight boxing champ.

During the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lunceford and a boyhood friend who had joined the Navy with him were strafed by gunfire. Lunceford was honorably discharged with a leg wound. The friend was killed at his side.

Back home, Lunceford began to rebuild his injured leg. A one-time rodeo bronc and bull rider, he focused on calf roping after his injury.

He was also a boxing coach for about 25 years, during which he trained many Dallas Golden Gloves champions, including Tyrone Cotton, Warren "Pee-wee" Mallard and Michael Rose.

Lunceford was 72 when he died of cancer in Dallas on May 12, 1994.

He was survived by a son, daughter and grandchild.

John McCormack

Pearl Harbor

“Yet to be issued a weapon, he carried only a Navy ceremonial sword to defend the island.”

John McCormack was commissioned a reserve ensign in the Navy Supply Corps. He trained at Harvard University, where future Dallas Mayor Wallace Savage was one of his instructors.

He graduated from the Navy program in September 1941 and was assigned to the USS Maryland. Two months later, on Nov. 21, 1941, he was assigned to the Naval Air Station at Pearl Harbor.

Bombs hitting battleship row woke him the morning of the attack.

McCormack, who was 24, went outside and saw the Japanese planes flying overhead. Yet to be issued a weapon, he carried only a Navy ceremonial sword to defend the island.

McCormack was stationed at Pearl Harbor until May 1945, when he was transferred to the Anacostia Naval Station in Washington, D.C.

After completing his military service, McCormack attended the Columbia School of Law, where he received his degree in 1948. He was on the legal team that formed Texas Instruments Inc., where he was an executive.

He married Catharine M. O’Brien, who died in 1988. In 1991, he married Janet Sachs.

He was 95 when he died in Dallas on Oct. 19, 2012. He was survived by four children, three stepchildren and five grandchildren.

Doris ‘Dorie’ Miller

USS West Virginia

“When he looked back, Miller was firing one of the guns.”

Dorie Miller was going about his duties serving breakfast and collecting laundry on the USS West Virginia on Dec. 7, 1941, when the battleship was slammed by torpedoes.

The Waco native headed to his battle station only to discover that a torpedo had destroyed it. Lt. Cmdr. Doir Johnson intercepted Miller and ordered him to accompany him to the bridge to assist with moving the ship's captain, Mervyn Bennion,
who had suffered a mortal shrapnel wound.

Miller then was ordered to help Lt. Frederic White and Ensign Victor Delano load two anti-aircraft machine guns. Miller wasn't familiar with the guns but was told what to do. At one point, Delano — expecting Miller to feed him ammunition —
became distracted. When he looked back, Miller was firing one of the guns.

Later, he helped move injured sailors through oil and water off the stricken vessel before it sank.

A report credited Miller with "unquestionably saving the lives of a number of people who might otherwise have been lost."

President Franklin Roosevelt awarded the Navy Cross to Miller, making him the first black serviceman to receive the award. In 1973, a Navy frigate, the USS Miller, was named in his honor.

Miller was killed in action on Nov. 24, 1943, when a Japanese torpedo sank the carrier escort on which he was serving, the USS Liscome Bay. He was 24.

John Wilkins Newnam

Submarine base

“At one point, they just shoved a gun into his hand and told him to start shooting.”

John Newnam was sent from his Louisiana home by his parents in 1935 to live with relatives in Dallas. He found work delivering The Dallas Morning News and later was hired as a copy clerk. His duties included being an office boy for the
newspaper’s founder, George Bannerman Dealey.

He was drafted into the Navy on Sept. 23, 1941, a Tuesday, 76 days before Pearl Harbor. That Saturday he married Joanna Jones. Within two weeks he was sent to San Diego, and from there, without the benefit of basic training, he was shipped out
to Pearl Harbor.

The 21-year-old had just finished breakfast went the attack began.

"There were people beside him and with him who were killed," his daughter Pam Williams of Lott said in 2014.

"At one point, they just shoved a gun into his hand and told him to start shooting."

Newnam served three years of submarine duty in the Pacific before he was stationed in California. He left the Navy as a chief petty officer.

After the war, he resumed what became a 49-year career at The News.

On Nov. 22, 1963, after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Newnam returned to his desk in the advertising department at The News to find Jack Ruby, a regular customer, reading a newspaper. Newnam testified at 1964 Ruby’s trial
for killing Lee Harvey Oswald.

Newnam was 94 when he died of natural causes in Waco on March 19, 2014. He was survived by his wife, Doris Kirk Newnam; four children; a brother; four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Gilbert Lee ‘Skip’ Packer

USS Honolulu

“Packer went up one deck to the showers and a torpedo hit, destroying everything below the shower deck that he was on, killing many sailors, including his friend, Cole.”

A Sunset High School graduate, Packer enlisted in the Navy in January 1941.

The Honolulu received minor repairs after the attack. Packer served on the ship throughout the war and became a boxing champion of the Pacific fleet.

On Oct. 20, 1944, he had just finished his four-hour duty and returned to his bunk area to change clothes. His buddy, Sam Cole, was in the bunk area preparing to go on duty. Cole told Packer that if he would shower, he would be out of his way
when he returned.

Packer went up one deck to the showers and a torpedo hit, destroying everything below the shower deck that he was on, killing many sailors, including Cole.

After the war, Packer returned to Dallas and was an owner and operator of an envelope-manufacturing businesses.

Packer was 90 when he died in Dallas on Jan. 13, 2014, from complications of a broken hip.

He was survived by two sons and a grandchild.

Charles Owen Peters

Ford Island

“I hope we get peace in the world soon, so we won't have to go through all this again.”

Charles Owen Peters graduated from North Texas State Teachers College in 1940 and enlisted in the Navy.

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, the 22-year-old was on the second floor of the bachelor officers' quarters on Ford Island in the center of Pearl Harbor. Suddenly Japanese planes were flying by at eye level, strafing the U.S. fleet and his air
base. It was his first taste of combat and the beginning of a 23-year career as a naval aviator.

"Everybody went down to the hangar, which was on fire," Peters said at Dallas' Laurel Land Cemetery. "I think it was about the first one they bombed. They got all our planes but one.

"I'm glad I'm still alive, and I'm sad that we lost so many at Pearl Harbor and they are no longer with us," he said. "I hope we get peace in the world soon, so we won't have to go through all this again."

Peters was born in Shawnee, Okla., and grew up in Muskogee and Shawnee, where he completed high school.

After graduating from what is now the University of North Texas, he enlisted in the Navy, hoping to become a fighter pilot. But standing 6 feet 2, he was too tall for a fighter cockpit. He received his wings as a seaplane pilot in September 1941.

The next month, October 1941, he married Blanche Evelyn Stuart. She died in 2008.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, Peters flew Consolidated PBY seaplanes in Indonesia, also known as the Dutch East Indies. He rescued people — and was rescued himself.

Peters was shot down a couple of times. On one occasion, he was picked up by civilians who hid him in their boat with grass mats.

In 1943-44, Peters was a PBY flight instructor at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Fla. He returned to combat, flying PBM Mariner seaplanes in the Philippines during the last year of the war.

Peters stayed in the Navy, where he had assignments around the world. He commanded a Navy base in England, was assigned to the NATO staff on Malta, served on ships and was an admiral's pilot. He went to the war colleges for the Air Force and Navy.

Peters was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross and five Air Medals.

He had a second career with LTV Corp. in North Texas.

Peters was 96 when he died March 26, 2015, in Euless. He is survived by a daughter, four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Emmit Monroe Price

Army mess hall

“Enemy planes were flying low enough that Price could see one pilot form a bull's-eye with his index finger and thumb, indicating he had hit his target.”

Emmit Price, 23, had just finished breakfast and was leaving an Army mess hall near Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked.

Hearing a bomb explode and air-raid sirens, he ran across a field with other soldiers to a weapons building, where a supply sergeant said he couldn't release materiel without an order. Price and his colleagues persuaded him otherwise, pointing
out that the U.S. had just been thrust into war.

Enemy planes were flying low enough that Price could see one pilot form a bull's-eye with his index finger and thumb, indicating he had hit his target, barracks that had just been strafed.

After the attack, Price served in Germany, helped liberate several concentration camps and received the Bronze Star.

He died of a stroke at age 88 in Dallas on Feb. 6, 2007.

Survivors included his wife, two daughters, a son, two sisters, two brothers, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

O.C. ‘Gus’ Seeley

USS Honolulu

Gus Seeley was born in Evarts, Ky., and joined the Navy in 1940, shortly before he graduated from high school. On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, he was aboard the USS Honolulu when the Japanese attacked.

He was reading the Sunday newspaper when an explosion rocked the light cruiser, he recalled months before he died in 2011.

"When the bomb hit, the ship jumped out as far as it could and dust came off the ceiling," he said.

"People kept saying, 'Another battleship down! Another battleship down!' and we thought, 'What the heck? Those are supposed to be big ships.'"

Seeley served aboard the Honolulu in the Aleutians and through the Guadalcanal campaign. In 1943, he helped test a new class of vessel, the Landing Ship, Tank (LST) designed to support amphibious landings.

He later served on the LSTs during the invasions of Normandy, Sicily and Salerno.

Seeley then returned to the Pacific, where he took part in landings in the Philippines and Okinawa.

In May 1948, he married Mattie Camilla Brimmage of Petty, Texas. She died in 2004.

Throughout his Navy career, Seeley had assignments in an array of areas, including intelligence and personnel. After the Korean War, he was sent to Brazil to help that country build a navy.

He retired in 1970 and went to work for the city of Dallas. He earned a bachelor's degree in criminology and corrections from Sam Houston State University.

Seeley was 89, when he died Sept. 28, 2011, in Irving.

He was survived by three children, two sisters, a brother and four grandchildren.

Joseph Smartt

Ford Island

Joseph Smartt enlisted in July 1940 and became a pilot. On Oct. 27, 1941, he flew a patrol bomber to Honolulu and subsequently was stationed at Kaneohe.

On the morning the Japanese attack, he was squadron duty officer and in his hangar. He spotted the Japanese planes and reported them to his captain. The 24-year-old was killed during the second wave of enemy planes.

In June 1942, a group of 72 Dallas aviation volunteers were dubbed the Joe Smartt Commandos. A Navy ship was also named for him. His mother christened the ship in Boston.

Smartt grew up in Dallas and attended North Dallas High School and Terrell School for Boys, North Texas Agricultural College (now UTA), the University of Texas at Austin and Southern Methodist University.

He is buried in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.

Allen Kirke Suter

USS Rigel

“It seemed the pilot was waving to me; he was so low and going so slow alongside the Rigel.”

Allen Suter, a 24-year-old printer aboard the USS Rigel, had just returned from mailing a Christmas card at the ship’s post office. He had purchased a newspaper, which he had spread out on his bunk.

The big news that Sunday was that the Japanese ambassador was visiting Washington, D.C., where President Franklin Roosevelt was seeking to avoid war.

Suter’s routine was shattered by a series of loud explosions. He looked out his porthole and saw smoke rising in the distance and a slow-flying plane with a colored ball painted on its side.

“And that didn’t mean a thing to me at the time,” Suter said 22 years later, in 1963. “It seemed the pilot was waving to me; he was so low and going so slow alongside the Rigel. And then he dropped bombs that hit the [USS] Arizona.”

Sirens called Suter to general quarters. Shrapnel from bombs that hit the Rigel bow-and-stern raked the ship. Later that day, Suter and his fellow printers volunteered for machine-gun training.

Suter had joined The Dallas Morning News in 1935 and enlisted in the Navy shortly before Pearl Harbor. He returned to the newspaper in 1945 and retired from the company in 1983.

Suter was 71 when he died of a heart attack on Aug. 2, 1989.

He was survived by his wife, two sons, three daughters and four grandchildren.

William Henry ‘Duck’ Temple

USS California

“...sprinting to his duty station below deck — well ahead of the ship alarm that would sound moments later”

William Temple was a Navy baker slicing bread in the galley aboard the USS California in Pearl Harbor the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

He dropped everything as Japanese planes attacked, sprinting to his duty station below deck — well ahead of the ship alarm that would sound moments later.

Temple survived that day and served through the remainder of World War II at naval bases across the Pacific, including at Guadalcanal, New Hebrides and the Philippines.

He was discharged from the Navy on July 15, 1946, 14 days early, said his wife, Ruth Temple of Dallas.

"He asked to be discharged, so they turned him loose two weeks early so that he could get to Waco and enroll in the fall semester" at Baylor University, she said. "In 28 months, he had gotten his degree."

Temple worked for a year at an accounting firm before joining Mobil Oil Corp. (now Exxon Mobil Corp.) in Dallas, where he worked in the accounting department for 23 years.

Temple died May 10, 2010 — a week before his 94th birthday — of kidney disease in Irving.

He was survived by his wife, a daughter and three grandchildren.

Jay Richards Thompson

USS San Francisco

“There was nothing they could do to help.”

Jay Thompson, an 18-year-old Marine, was assigned to the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco three days before the attack.

Docked for repairs across from Pearl Harbor’s battleship row, the ship wasn’t bombed or damaged.

"Because they were in repair dock, they had no munitions on board," his daughter Paula Koehler of Big Spring said for his obituary. "There was nothing they could do to help."

Thompson, a Clayton native who dropped out of high school to join the Marines in July 1941, took part in many Pacific theater battles aboard the San Francisco and received a medical discharge in January 1945.

While Thompson was recovering from lung surgery, Tommie Walden, one of Thompson's VA counselors, encouraged him to continue his education. He finished high school, earned his master’s degree and began a career in education.

He taught in Nocona and Denton, before completing training at the Episcopal seminary in Austin. In 1960, he returned to education as a high school government and history teacher in Mesquite. Thompson Elementary in Mesquite is named in his honor.

In 1991, Thompson found Tommie Walden to thank her. His one-year search was the subject of 1991 Steve Blow columns in The Dallas Morning News. Walden attended the dedication of Thompson Elementary.

Thompson attended the 50th, 60th and 65th reunions of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association near Honolulu.

He was 84 when he died of respiratory failure March 12, 2008, at home in Jacksboro.

Survivors included three children, and five grandchildren.

Robert Eugene Wainscott

USS West Virginia

“We felt that we could not leave them behind with the ship sinking, even if they were dead.”

Robert Wainscott, 19, made three trips to the engine room of the USS West Virginia to rescue fellow crew members as the battleship sank in Pearl Harbor.

On his third trip up from the engine room, an explosion blew him off the ship's second deck. He spent the next 45 hours unconscious, wounded and hidden behind a wall with only his face and the right side of his head above the mixture of water
and diesel fuel.

He was listed as missing and presumed dead when he failed to report for a Sunday afternoon roll call. His family in Dallas was notified. The Navy attaché helped his family make funeral arrangements that included plans to bury a flag at Forest
Lawn Cemetery with his name on the grave.

But on Dec. 20, his mother learned her son was alive.

Wainscott was born in Columbia, Mo., and grew up in Dallas, where he graduated from North Dallas High School. He joined the Navy and on Dec. 7, 1941, was a second-class seaman serving aboard the USS West Virginia in Pearl Harbor.

He was abruptly awakened that Sunday morning by a call to battle stations. The Japanese attack was underway. On his way to his post in the radio shack, the chief warrant officer grabbed him to help rescue sailors in the ship's engine room. They
arrived to find most of the men already dead. The West Virginia had been hit by five torpedoes.

"It was a horrible scene, with men screaming and dying in that engine room," he recalled in 2001. "We felt that we could not leave them behind with the ship sinking, even if they were dead."

On his final trip from the engine room, an explosion blew him off a ladder and onto a pile of hammocks, where he lay trapped until early Tuesday. That's when he heard someone say, "I found one here."

Luck was on his side. The West Virginia did not completely sink because it was tied to the USS Tennessee; otherwise he would have drowned.

Wainscott seemed destined to be declared dead.

"When I woke or regained consciousness, it scared the hell out of me," he said. "There was a Catholic priest leaning over me giving me the last rites, and I started telling him I wasn't Catholic."

A mix-up in hospital charts had sent the priest to the wrong bed.

Two days later, Wainscott was put to work helping care for burn victims.

After nine days of "this very difficult and emotionally stressful work, I was assigned" to the USS Louisville, a light-class cruiser, he said.

In April 1942, he was one of about 200 men who had erroneously been declared dead at Pearl Harbor who were sent home to sell war bonds.

After the war bond tour, he was reassigned to the Louisville, where he served about three years.

Near the end of the war, House Speaker Sam Rayburn's office contacted Wainscott and offered to test him for a spot in the Navy's V-12 Navy College Training Program.

"He asked them, 'Why did it take you so long to contact me?'" said Harry Robinson, a friend to whom Wainscott told his story. "And they said, 'We would have, but we thought you were dead.'"

By the time Wainscott completed the V-12 program at Southwestern University in Georgetown, the war was winding down.

After completing his studies at the University of Texas at Austin, Wainscott became executive officer and eventual captain — at age 26 — of the USS Stormes.

In 1950, he married Evelyn McEuen. They lived in Houston before returning to Dallas in 1957.

In Dallas, Wainscott worked for Employers Casualty Co., where he became a marketing manager. He retired in 1984.

He was 89 when he died of a heart attack on Feb. 13, 2012. He was survived by his wife, two children and one grandchild.

Phillip L. ‘Phil’ Willis

Bellows Field

“We Texans die with our boots on.”

Phil Willis, a 23-year-old Kaufman native, was still in the tuxedo he had worn to a farewell celebration at the officers club just hours before the attack.

The second lieutenant was stationed at Bellows Field and had planned that day to escort the body of a friend back to Tulsa for burial. He intended to remain and get married in a few weeks.

"At first, we thought somebody was playing hell on maneuvers, but then we saw the red ball on the sides of the Japanese Zeros," he said in 1975.

Short of sleep and suffering the effects of partying into the morning, Willis couldn't find his shoes and opted for his cowboy boots.

“We Texans die with our boots on,” he recalled telling a friend at the time.

Assigned to the Army Air Corps' 86th Observation Squadron, Willis initially saved his aircraft by quickly getting it airborne during the first attack. Hugging the treetops in his unarmed aircraft, he saw the Zeros buzzing all over Pearl Harbor.
The next morning, his plane was destroyed in a second attack.

Afterward, Willis — staying awake on coffee, cigarettes and adrenaline — took a group of enlisted men to patrol the beach for an anticipated invasion of Japanese soldiers.

The Japanese used five two-man submarines as part of the attack.

Willis' beach patrol captured a Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, who had sought refuge on the beach after his sub hit a reef. The sailor was America's first prisoner of World War II and the only one of the Pearl Harbor attack, according to
Walter Lord's book Day of Infamy.

Fresh from pilots school, Willis moved quickly from observation aircraft to fighting aircraft, eventually flying 52 combat missions in a B-17 bomber.

Due to a back injury suffered when he was shot down over the Pacific, Willis retired in 1946 as a major. He was 27.

He shot down eight enemy planes, sank four ships and received 16 citations, including two Silver Stars for gallantry in action and a Distinguished Flying Cross. He lost no crew members during two bomber crashes.

After returning to Texas, he enrolled at North Texas State University, now the University of North Texas, and earned a bachelor's in government in 1948.

Willis was elected to the Legislature in 1946 and 1948. He and his brother, Doyle Willis of Fort Worth, are the only brothers to have served in the Texas House simultaneously. After serving in Austin, Willis worked in the real estate business,
built civil defense shelters and sold new cars.

On Nov. 22, 1963, Willis again witnessed history, this time in Dallas with his wife and two daughters. The family selected a position at the end of the JFK parade route to avoid the crowds, he said in the book Pictures of the Pain,
by Richard Trask.

"I figured that would be the ideal spot," he said in the book.

"I wanted them to see him and get some pictures. I had no idea what I was getting into." Willis' motorcade photos of the assassination moments were studied by government and private researchers. He and his daughter Linda Kay later testified
before the Warren Commission.

Willis was 76 when he died Jan. 27, 1995, of leukemia at his Dallas home.

He was survived by his wife, two daughters, his brother and four grandchildren.

Remembering Pearl Harbor

Sacrifice

More than 2,400 people died during the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor. Their names are listed below.

U.S.S. Arizona survivor Louis Conter salutes the remembrance wall of the USS Arizona during a memorial service for the 73rd anniversary of the attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl harbor on December 7, 2014. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

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With the USS Arizona memorial in the background, A navy rifleman stands at attention at the ceremony commemorating the 72nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. (Marco Garcia/The Associated Press)